The reddish-humanoid was still stumbling backwards, its hands now flung over its eyes. Vehuel was in front of him, his arm outstretched. From his hand sprang a beam of white light, brilliant as lightning, which he directed at my attacker’s face. The creature’s jaws split as it growled unintelligibly. I stared, dumbfounded, at the crazy sight. After a second or two Vehuel lowered his hand and the light faded. The creature stumbled off into the battle, hands still clutching at its face, covering its eyes, shrieking in agony.
Vehuel turned to me and offered a hand. I scrabbled away.
“I will not hurt you,” he said patiently, but I was leery. I’d never seen anything like what he’d done, and I’d seen plenty of crazy crap since falling in with shapeshifters. Did I want to mess with a guy who had that kind of ability?
“As you like,” he said, retaining his imperious manner. Drawing his robes a little tighter around himself, he turned away. “Come to us if you would find safety.”
Maybe I should’ve taken him up on his offer. In the chaos of being assaulted by the reddish monster and Vehuel stepping in with his magic light, I’d forgotten the Nakki, but she hadn’t forgotten me. I felt a hand seize my ankle again and I screamed, kicking wildly, knowing what was happening but unable to stop it. The grip tightened, jerking me off balance.
She was smiling. “The Yara-ma-yha-who didn’t get to finish drinking your blood, but that just means I get to take care of you.”
Drink my blood? Now I understood the suckers on my face, the stinging and swelling, the physical weakness. Horrified, I scrabbled for my gun, which I’d dropped when the Yara-ma-yha-who had snatched me up. My fingers tore through rough grass, dirt, pebbles, rocks…and latched onto something hard, metallic. I grabbed it, rolled over and fired.
The shot missed, but that was on purpose. Since I didn’t know that she could actually kill me in such a small amount of water, my conscience wouldn’t allow me to shoot her outright. Still, I aimed right next to her face in the water and hit where I aimed. Water sprayed and the creature’s eyes went huge. The next thing I knew, her watery hand had dissolved, freeing me, and her ugly face in the puddle had vanished. She’d leapt up, transforming as she did, and a scared young woman stood there blinking at me.
I held my gun level and stared her down. “Get out of here,” I said. “Next time you won’t be so lucky.”
She edged away a few steps, spun, and ran off into the night towards the parked cars.
With her absence, I abruptly noticed something else. The absence of music. My gaze switched to Mrs. Costas, who now lay in nothing more than a patch of mud…which definitely lessened the power and beauty of her appearance as a Merrow. In fact, I could see the ripple passing over her body, indicating she was trying to shift back into human form. Multiple ripples, because she seemed to be stuck. She wriggled about desperately in the muck, looking like a fish out of water, thrown up on a muddy bank. It might have been halfway humorous if she hadn’t looked so desperate.
“I can’t change,” she was sputtering. “I can’t change.”
I swallowed hard. I should have killed her, or else walked away and left her to her fate. But enough humanity remained, despite all of the ways she’d harmed me, that I approached her cautiously and sank down on my heels.
“Do you need more water?” I asked. “I can look for more water bottles.”
“It isn’t that,” she responded, her desperation visible. “My red cap. Sean must have done something with it. I—I’m stuck, I can’t shift. I can’t live life like this—in Merrow form on dry land. What did he do with it? How? He’s been here the whole time!”
I craned my neck to glance over my shoulder. He was definitely still here, where he’d fallen on the trampled grass, his rival’s headless corpse beside him.
“I don’t know,” I said, swinging my focus back to her. “What can I do?”
“Do? Don’t you think you’ve done enough?” Pure hatred filled her eyes. “You came into our lives that November night, and everything since has gone to hell.”
I rocked back on my heels. “You’re blaming me? What about my life? My life’s the one that went to hell that night.”
“No.” She struggled to push herself up on one elbow in the mud. “No, you ruined everything, Ellie.”
“How did I—”
Seeing the blind fury on her face, I shut up. She wasn’t listening and there was no point in arguing. I didn’t think she knew what she was saying anyway. She looked half-crazed. I really believed the loss of her cap and being stuck in her Merrow form, away from water, had driven her crazy. She needed someone to blame, and I was an easy target.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Costas,” I said, standing. “I’ll see what I can do for you.”
I turned my back with the intention of swallowing down my reluctance and checking Sean’s body, in case he had the cap on him.
“You think you’re sorry now…” she hissed.
I ignored her and moved on, but as I did a new song burst from her. It was glorious and terrible all at once, exquisite and terrifying in its haunting strains and fervent, almost wild scales. I kept walking, chills racing
